The Beer Barrel and The Chi-Lites
Heard this song today in a coffee shop after my morning swim. Brought back a flood of memories of Friday night in the Beer Barrel in the west end of Portland, Maine in the early 1970s. It was a small, dingy place and the gang that gathered there were mainly young workers, prone to drink and smoke (in a double sense) too much, and most of us were so clumsy socially that we could only hope to identify with the Chi-Lites’ beautiful lament – “Have you seen her” – on the juke box. That said, we bonded and had a lot of fun in that west end bar. But, oh my, the next morning did we ever suffer – hangovers and pockets emptied of our meager paychecks. Of course, that never stopped me and others from “buying the bar.” (full disclosure: a bottle of Bud was 50 cents and it was, as I said, a small place.)
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